Mesut Özil and Juan Mata are elusive and ethereal imperfect 10s

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The No 10 shirt has long been synonymous with footballing royalty, but the
rise of the single-striker system has given playmakers an even more exalted
status in the past decade. The shenanigans surrounding some of the No 10s in
the Barclays Premier League recently would not have been out of place among
the Royal Courts of early modern Europe, as like ambitious young princes the
leading protagonists have scoured the Continent in search of the most
suitable match.

In such a small world — then and now — these matters of courtship are often
interlinked, as we were reminded at the Emirates Stadium, where